According to new research, the negative effects of excess body fat on heart health can't be canceled out by maintaining an active lifestyle. In the past, some studies had suggested that being physically fit could mitigate the negative effects of being overweight on heart health. However, this is not the case, according to a new study recently published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology. Author of the study, Alejandro Lucia, stated conclusively: "One cannot be 'fat but healthy.' This was the first nationwide analysis to show that being regularly active is not likely to eliminate the detrimental health effects of excess body fat. Our findings refute the notion that a physically active lifestyle can completely negate the deleterious effects of overweight and obesity." Researchers used data from 527,662 working adults from Spain with an average age of 42. They were put into groups according to activity level and groups by body weight. The study showed greater cardiovascular risk for overweight and obese participants compared with those of a normal weight, regardless of how much they exercised. Participants who were obese and active were twice as likely to have high cholesterol, four times as likely to have diabetes, and five times as likely to have high blood pressure as those who were normal weight but inactive. "Exercise does not seem to compensate for the negative effects of excess weight," Lucia said. "This finding was also observed overall in both men and women."
With close to 39 percent of U.S. adults obese and another 30 percent overweight, losing excess body fat could be the key to reducing the overwhelming degree of chronic disease, suffering, and health-care expense in our country. “While the controversy about the precise contribution of weight versus exercise to cardiovascular health will likely continue, to optimize health and minimize the risk of cardiovascular disease, patients should pay attention to both: maintaining a healthy weight and being physically active," said Dr. Anthony Rosenzweig, chief of the cardiology division at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
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